by Nate Bloom
People of the Emmys
The Emmy awards for TV excellence air on Fox on Sunday, Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. The on-camera Jewish talent up for a 2007 award includes Patricia Arquette (“The Medium”) and Kyra Sedgwick (“The Closer”), who vie for the best actress in a drama series Emmy. Debra Messing (“The Starter Wife”) is up for the best lead actress in a mini-series Emmy while Judith Light (“Ugly Betty”) is nominated for best guest actress in a comedy.
Last year’s winner of best supporting actor in a comedy, Jeremy Piven, is again nominated for playing Jewish talent agent Ari Gold in “Entourage.” Veterans William Shatner (“Boston Legal”), Ed Asner (“The Christmas Card”), Martin Landau (“Entourage”) and Eli Wallach (“Studio 60”) are nominated (in order) for best supporting actor in a comedy series; best supporting actor in a TV movie; best guest actor in a comedy series and best guest actor in a drama.
Lewis Black’s HBO comedy special is up for best comedy special. Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show”) is nominated for best performance in a variety program and his program was nominated as best variety show.
Berkeley native Andy Samberg, of “SNL” fame, is nominated for best song for writing the satirical tune “Dick in a Box.” Samberg just gave his first interview about his Jewish background to JVibe, a Jewish teen magazine. He told JVibe that his parents, whom he described as “ex-hippies,” have become much more observant and now celebrate Shabbat. He said he observes the High Holy Days and that his sister, who married an Israeli, now lives in Israel.
Dancing with the Jews
ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” gets incredible ratings, even though the “stars” are generally thought of as has-beens. Its new season starts on Monday, Sept. 24, at 8 p.m. Included in this year’s line-up is Marc Cuban, 49, the Internet billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team; still-classy actress Jane Seymour, 56; and actress Tori Spelling, 34, who is rarely described as “classy.”
Spelling hasn’t had a good acting role since TV’s “Beverly Hills 90210,” which was produced by her late father Aaron Spelling and went off the air in 2000. For the last two years she has starred in the reality series “Inn Love” on the Oxygen channel. Her career plan appears to be to endlessly use her stale, nepotism-based fame to somehow stay on TV.
Film notes
The 1981 mini-series “Masada,” about the Jewish revolt against the Romans, was released on DVD on Sept. 11, just in time for the High Holy Days. “Masada” was a very good, if not great series. Peter O’Toole was terrific as the Roman army commander and Peter Strauss held his own as the leader of the Jewish zealots.
Opening Friday, Sept. 21, is “Sydney White,” a college comedy that is a sort of re-working of the Snow White fairy tale. Amanda Bynes, 21, stars in the title role. Last April, I spoke to Bynes, who most recently co-starred in the hit movie musical version of “Hairspray.” She told me that she was raised both in her father’s Catholic faith and her mother’s Jewish faith, but that she hasn’t yet decided on a religion to identify with (though she loves to make matzah brei).
I also recently spoke to “White’s” director, Joe Nussbaum. This is his first major Hollywood movie and he thinks people of all ages will like his family film. Nussbaum, who keeps kosher, tells me that five cast members are Jewish — Bynes, co-star Sara Paxton, Samm Levine (“Freaks and Geeks”), Danny Strong and pretty newcomer Libby Mintz.
Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at middleoftheroad1@aol.com.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California